RizzutoGallery is proud to present Beirut, solo show of Hale Tenger ((Izmir, Turkey, 1960).
Internationally renowned artist, Hale Tenger has exhibited extensively at prominent museums and institutions worldwide, and — with the exception of her participation at the 57th Venice Biennale last year and at the Attese: Second Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Albisola, Savona in 2003 — this is the very first time Tenger’s work is being presented by RizzutoGallery in Italy.

The exhibition — included in the official program of Palermo Italian Capital of Culture 2018, under the patronage of the City of Palermo — will be inaugurated on Thursday, June 14th 2018 at 7 p.m., and it will remain open until the 1st of September, visitable from Tuesday to Saturday, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
From 15 to 23 June the exhibition will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Tenger’s work can largely be defined as experience based and immersive where presence operates as a key element. Her narrative installations are based on an elaborate combination of unconventional use of materials, audio, and video. Tenger's wide range of production, including large-scale installations, single or multi-channel video works, photographic prints and sculptures, is often inspired by historical, political and psychosocial references having to do with binaries: society and the self, ideologies of the East and West, memory and historical fact, the oppressor and the oppressed, governances and “the people.” By operating with the qualities of mood, sound, texture and affect, her works, whether creating meditative atmospheres or unsettling ones, trace out the relationship between presence and absence, material and intelligible. Audio is integrated into most of her works in various forms, either as an exclusive music, as a narrative or an arrangement of archival recordings.
Throughout her career, Hale Tenger has held solo shows in Turkey, Germany, France, United States, UAE; she has taken part in various Biennials (Venice, Istanbul, San Paulo, Havana, Manifesta 1, Johannesburg, Gwangju) and her works has been featured in distinguished institutions, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Art Gallery of Western Australia; ARTER, Istanbul; Carré d’Art Museum, Nimes; Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Boghassian Foundation Brussels; Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris; Seoul Museum of Art, SALT, Istanbul; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.

For the exhibition at RizzutoGallery besides the video installation Beirut (2005-2007, video 3'47“), photographs and sculptures in very rare editions will also be presented.
In Beirut video we see the facade of the old famous St. George Hotel with a fixed grid of windows and balconies filling the screen. The facade faintly comes to life as daylight plays over the white curtains being stirred by the breeze and the hypnotic music composed for the video by Tenger’s long time collaborator and friend musician Serdar Ateşer. However we soon come to realize that this is the lull before the storm as towards the end of the video the daytime calmness is suddenly replaced by a nightmarish scene with sounds of artillery fires and sirens.

The footage used in the video was shot by Tenger in Beirut in 2005, secretly from a hotel window. It was after former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination and the crater caused by the car bomb explosion that had the strength of a ton of TNT was still there, right next to St. George Hotel. It was forbidden to document the area which was still under UN military protection for the ongoing investigation. The building’s left façade –not seen in the video- was partially destroyed due to the bombing that killed twenty-two people, however the front façade of the building, as seen in the video, was just as it is, stripped off, ready for the renovation process. Due to governmental blocking of the renovation permission release, the owners of the hotel had placed white fabrics to each window as an act of protest. The artillery fire sounds used at the end of the video are original recordings from the Israeli intervention in 2007, downloaded from YouTube (recorded by: msoubra). The video was completed in 2007.

Beirut delivers in a poetic and sad way, the shared destiny of the Middle East, and beyond, of every city or country that has experienced the violence of political unrest, bombs and murders. It will be a moment to reflect — here in Palermo as Beirut, a Middle eastern city in Europe — on the need for an endless search for a true democracy to put an end to all injustices, which will never be fully established until equality provided to the people «through dialogue, the culture of hospitality, cohabitation, and the coexistence of the different.”
Hale Tenger was born in Izmir, Turkey, 1960. She first studied computer programming at Bosphorus University in Istanbul (AA), and later attended Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (now Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) from where she graduated with MFA degree from the Department of Ceramics, afterwards, through British Council Award, she had her second MFA from South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education (now Cardiff Metropolitan University).
From 1990 onwards Hale Tenger has held numerous solo shows and participated in various group exhibitions and biennials internationally.
Among the solo shows: Under, The Yard, Alserkal Programming, Dubai (2018); We didn't go inside; we were always on the inside / We didn't go outside; we were always on the outside, Protocinema, New York (2015); Swinging on the Stars, Galeri Nev Istanbul, Istanbul (2013); Perspectives: Beirut, Smithsonian Institute, Washington (2011); Balloons on the Sea, Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2011); Never Never Land, Mannheimer Kuntsverein, Mannheim (2001); and The Closet, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas (1997).
Among the Biennials: 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia (2017); 1st Haifa Mediterranean Biennial (2010); 8th Biennial of Havana (2003); Gwangju Biennial (2000); the 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (1998); 22nd Biennial of São Paulo (1994); 3rd and 4th Istanbul Biennials (1992 & 1995).
Her work has been presented in international institutions including: Center Pompidou, Paris; Art Gallery of Western Australia; ARTER, Istanbul; Neuer Berliner Kunsverein, Berlin; Boghassian Foundation, Brussels; Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul; Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, Lille, Carré d'Art-Nimes Museum of Contemporary Art, Nimes; Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, Arnhem; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Protocinema, New York; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
She lives and works in Istanbul.
List of exhibitions Beirut was previously presented:
2016 “Cher(e)s Ami(e)s”, Centre Pompidou, Paris, curated by Christine Macel.
2014 “Impact”, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
2013 “Curtains”, The Center for American Architecture and Design, University of Texas at Austin, Mebane Gallery, Austin.
2012 “Istanbul Modern – Rotterdam”, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, curated by Levent Çalıkoğlu
2011 “Double Crescent: Art from Istanbul and New Orleans”, C24 Gallery, New York, curated by Dan Cameron.
2011 “Perspectives: Hale Tenger”, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, curated by Carol Huh.
2010 “The First Haifa Mediterranean Biennial”, Haifa, curated by Belu-Simion Făinaru.
2010 “New Works, New Horizons”, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, curated by Levent Çalıkoğlu.
2009 “Seriosly Ironic”, CentrePasquArt, Bienne, curated by Dolores Denaro and Işın Önol.
2009 “Taswir”, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, curated by A. Shulamit Çoruh and Hendrik Budde.
2008 “Last Things”, Westfalischer Kunstverein, Münster, curated by Vasıf Kortun.
2008 “Scenes of the South: Eastern Meditterranean”, Carré d’Art-Nimes Museum of Contemporary Art, Nimes, curated by Françoise Cohen.
2008 “In and Out of Istanbul”, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, curated by Osvaldo Romberg.
2008 “Given Difference”, Pier 92, New York, curated by Charles Merewether.
2007 “Nev/Tepebasi”, Galeri Nev Istanbul, Istanbul.